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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28279248">i've made it harder to know that you know</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking'>crownlessliestheking</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bleach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fae &amp; Fairies, Fae Magic, Getting Together, Hurt and comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, Sparring, character-driven, mild violence, soft fantasy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:34:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,707</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28279248</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“They said you lost your powers, too. After everything that went down with Aizen.” Bright blue eyes linger on the longsword propped up against the table. Ichigo finds that he has to remind himself how to breathe. “That’s not what you used when you fought me.”</p><p>“They said you were dead,” is what he manages instead of any kind of real answer, wheezing it out. The sheer impossibility of Grimmjow Jaegerjaques standing in front of him is a big thing, it balloons outwards and takes up all the air in the room.</p><p>[GrimmIchi Secret Santa Gift Fic :) ]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>GrimIchi Secret Santa Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i've made it harder to know that you know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandelion/gifts">Pandelion</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy holidays! My gift to Pandelion for the GrimmIchi AO3 Secret Santa exchange, I really hope you like it!!</p><p>Title from Marchin' On by OneRepublic, which is not actually what I listened to when writing this but is still a nice nostalgic song for me.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="ujudUb">
  <p>
    <em>For those nights when I couldn't be there</em><br/>
<em>I've made it harder to know that you know</em><br/>
<em>That somehow</em><br/>
<em>We'll keep movin' on</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="ujudUb">
  <p>
    <em>There's so many wars we fought</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="ujudUb">
  <p>
    <em>There's so many things we're not</em><br/>
<em>But with what we have, I promise you that</em><br/>
<em>We're marchin' on</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="ujudUb">
  <p>
    <em>-Marchin' On, OneRepublic</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="ujudUb">
  <hr/>
  <p>“So. You’re here, huh,” drawls out a voice that Ichigo does <em>not</em> startle at, not in the slightest.</p>
  <p>“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says instead. “I live here, it sounds like you’re looking for someone else.” But his fingers curl tight around Zangestu’s hilt where it’s resting against his side, the shortsword within closer reach than the long.</p>
  <p>“I know who the fuck I’m looking for. I’d know him anywhere. Moon Cutter. White Demon. He of the Black-Fanged Blade. Whatever the hell you want to call him.” A pause. “They say you’re the strongest fighter in this backwater dump, that you could probably destroy the place if you sneezed wrong.”</p>
  <p>“They say plenty of things,” Ichigo answers, and finally looks up to face who’s standing in front of him. The world stops, freezes, stutters into a start again.</p>
  <p>It can’t be him, he died, a long time ago, and Ichigo had mourned him, even if no one else did. Even if no one else <em>would</em>. He somehow manages to get his tongue to finish his sentence.</p>
  <p>“Doesn’t mean all of them are true.”</p>
  <p>The other man scoffs, and sits in the rickety wooden chair across from him like it’s a throne.</p>
  <p>“They said you lost your powers, too. After everything that went down with Aizen.” Bright blue eyes linger on the longsword propped up against the table. Ichigo finds that he has to remind himself how to breathe. “That’s not what you used when you fought me.”</p>
  <p>“They said you were dead,” is what he manages instead of any kind of real answer, wheezing it out. The sheer impossibility of <em>Grimmjow Jaegerjaques</em> standing in front of him is a big thing, it balloons outwards and takes up all the air in the room.</p>
  <p>No, it can’t be him. It can’t-</p>
  <p>It has to be a fake, a convincing one. There had never been a body, but the Fair Folk have never died that easily, no matter what they were forced to become. Ichigo had once thought he’d know, if Grimmjow died. They’d crossed swords the first time and it was like learning how to breathe again, the axis of fate spinning around them for as long as the fight had lasted.</p>
  <p>Ichigo remembers thinking <em>yes</em>,<em> here is someone who will eat me alive, thorns and all</em>, and he remembers growing those thorns sharper, just to win. Zangetsu offers a curl of eager amusement, and the phantom impact of blocking a blow shudders up his arm.</p>
  <p>“They say plenty of things. Doesn’t mean all of them are true,” the other says, just mocking enough for there to be an edge. Ichigo closes his eyes, counts to five. When he reopens them, Grimmjow- or the thing that’s wearing his face- is still there, sneering over at him.</p>
  <p>They hadn’t ever spoken about it, that bond that lay slumbering between them, and as time had passed and Grimmjow hadn’t shown up- hadn’t been <em>found</em>, not on the sands where Ichigo had left him, so far from the home in Faerie that he should have had, not anywhere else, in the mortal world, not in the Seelie Court or the Unseelie or anywhere between where the wild things roamed-, well. Ichigo had been forced to cave to reality. He’d been young. He’d imagined it. They hadn’t spoken about it, or anything else, and even though he’s never felt that kind of connection before or after Grimmjow, even fairy tales have their limits.</p>
  <p>But here he is. Or here is someone wearing a very convincing mockery of his face, and something dark and angry stirs in him at the thought. No. Whatever peace they have is hard-won, and if this is a trap, Ichigo will step into it and then obliterate the one who set it for <em>daring</em> to do this. Grimmjow isn’t a hero, and for all that he was important to Ichigo- still is, in fact-, the world has forgotten him, the King-that-would-be, forced to bow to another. The world has forgotten all those Aizen gathered and raised, and threw down as sacrifices for his plan.</p>
  <p>And Ichigo- after that, Ichigo hadn’t stayed. He couldn’t. He was half-Fae himself, blooded with Seelie magic on his father’s side, but with that power burnt out to nothing but dead ashes, there was nothing in Faerie for him. And the mortal world was wide, and empty, and there were plenty of places that weren’t his quiet hometown that he could go and lose himself in.</p>
  <p>Except that’s not what had happened, was it. No, he’d gotten drawn into another fight, and then another, and gotten his powers back and lost and regained his swords, extensions of himself and his magic that they were, and it was all fucking <em>empty</em>, because he was still haunted by a broken promise.</p>
  <p>Ichigo is not Fae enough for that to matter, for it to have festered and eaten away at him- his stubborn, mortal, mongrel blood has survived by living a lie, after all, bitter as ash after its revelation. And so he can lie, he has lied before, and the words may taste like iron in his mouth and choke in his throat, but he can do it.</p>
  <p>Promises, though. Promises are another matter. It was no blood oath, no life debt, but he’d sworn to Grimmjow that they’d fight again, and then he’d left him, and somewhere between the chaos of bringing Aizen down, he’d disappeared. He’d died.</p>
  <p>He’s dead, Ichigo tells himself, just to see if he can make himself believe it.</p>
  <p>Just because he <em>can</em> lie doesn’t mean he’s good at it.</p>
  <p>But the one in front of him looks like Grimmjow, and smiles like him, exudes that same arrogance as he had before. There’s new scars on him; Ichigo can see them snaking up his chest. He’s broader, his cheekbones sharper. His hair is longer. He doesn’t look older- but then again, he wouldn’t.</p>
  <p>There’s only one way to find out who he is. There’s only ever<em> been</em> one way.</p>
  <p>“We’ll fight, then,” Ichigo says, and the grin that splits the other’s face is nothing short of familiar. It sends a thrill right down his spine, and the air between them goes syrup-thick with intent, crackling with magic.</p>
  <p>“Well shit, Kurosaki,” the other practically purrs out. “You should’ve just said that from the beginning.”</p>
  <p>“Not here,” Ichigo tells him firmly. Grimmjow or not, he has no intention of wrecking his second-favorite tavern around, or accidentally entangling any innocent bystanders, however drunk they are. Besides, they’re already drawing more looks than he’s comfortable with.</p>
  <p>He stands, makes sure his swords are secured, and walks out. There’s enough money on the table to cover his drink and a little more besides.</p>
  <p>“Lead the way, then,” says the same voice right out of his memories, turning four words into a lazy taunt. An old, familiar flame lights low in his gut, and Ichigo strides out into the night.</p>
  <p>He knows exactly where to go.</p>
  <p>-------</p>
  <p>It’s raining in a fine, misty drizzle, by the time it takes to get to the field that Ichigo has in mind. It’s far from the village, an expanse of grassy nothingness, with no real significance to it other than he trains here sometimes, fights against air until he’s tired. The woods nearby are hollow and empty, the trees tame; the Courts have no real influence here, and it’s rare to get a passing visit from any other Fae. It’s why he chose this place.</p>
  <p>It isn’t peaceful, he thinks, but it’s something close enough to it.</p>
  <p>
    <strike>It’s lonely, it’s exile.</strike>
  </p>
  <p><strike>Grimmjow </strike>The other’s stuck close to him, almost uncomfortably so, the entire time. Ichigo hadn’t bothered to speed their course; their feet would get them here just fine without any assistance from the land and air, and besides. This gives him enough time to process what he’ll do.</p>
  <p>He doesn’t think it’s Grimmjow, not really- it can’t be. If he was alive, somehow, he’d have showed up sooner. If he was alive, somehow, <em>someone</em> would have told him.</p>
  <p>But if it is-</p>
  <p>No.</p>
  <p>He won’t know until they do what he brought them here to do.</p>
  <p>“Tch. This place is a fuckin’ shithole.” Ichigo shoots him a sharp glance, but it does nothing to file away at the contempt clearly directed at him. “Seriously, Kurosaki. The hell are you doing out here? You shouldn’t be here, you should be getting your ass kissed by those Seelie bastards in the Thirteen.”</p>
  <p>“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” he says, mustering up every ounce of patience he has. “And enough talking, yeah?”</p>
  <p>“Now that’s what I like to hear.” A flash of a grin, the too-familiar curl of lips and white, white teeth, sharper than anyone else’s he’s seen, and the too-familiar swoop of his gut that accompanies it. But Ichigo is not so easily fooled, not like this, and he isn’t going to let a long-dead <em>feeling</em> get in the way. If this creature is a danger, he’s going to put it down, plain and simple.</p>
  <p>Ichigo watches him walk, and the stride and gait is familiar too, and that stupid, young part of him dares to hope still, because he knows that no glamour is that good. And still- he can’t trust it. No matter how badly he wants to.</p>
  <p>“How we doing this, Kurosaki? Like always?”</p>
  <p>Like always referring to the death, Ichigo is sure- at least, that’s how it had been for Grimmjow, every time they’d crossed swords before. But it hadn’t, for Ichigo. He’d taken up Zangetsu, forged it from his own magic and his own self, just as he was taught and just as how the other warriors of the Courts did, with an oath of protection.</p>
  <p>It was the way, now, of the Seelie. To bind themselves to their blades with an oath, a reason, so that if it were ever broken, they would fall upon their own swords.</p>
  <p>Others had pledged loyalty to the glistening white city, to their superiors, to their friends or their mates. Yet others had pledged service. And some, those ancient beings at the heart of the Courts, old blood made more powerful by older age, they held no pledges at all but to themselves.</p>
  <p>Ichigo’s had been different. He’d had only one goal, and despite everything that has happened since his blood awoke, he still only has one goal.</p>
  <p>He’ll protect, just as his mother had wanted of him.</p>
  <p>He’s always been doing that, by the skin of his teeth.</p>
  <p>“No,” he says, shortly. “To first blood.”</p>
  <p>This, too, is soft. But he doesn’t need to be cruel, not anymore. He’d nearly let them make him that way, he won’t give them the satisfaction of knowing they eventually succeeded.</p>
  <p>He’ll kill this thing if he has to, of course- there’s no question about that. But when it hasn’t proven a danger to anyone but Ichigo? That, he can’t do.</p>
  <p>“First blood, then. Terms set, challenge accepted.” His voice sharpens, the lazy drawl turning to something much more purposeful, and he’s immediately reminded of Grimmjow as they’d first met, grinning and vicious, all sharp teeth and sharper edges. An arm, going through Rukia with ease, ripping through the strength that Ichigo’d worked hard to build, and daring him to do more. Do better.</p>
  <p>He’s suddenly unsure of his own doubt.</p>
  <p>And then-</p>
  <p>It begins.</p>
  <p>A sword, drawn in a flash, the pattern on the hilt not quite visible. But he knows, he knows, he knows.</p>
  <p>Metal screeches against metal, and when Zangetsu’s longsword slams into the other blade, he hears the laugh in his head and the throaty purr of Pantera, almost as familiar as his own sword’s. His blood <em>thrums</em>, and all he can see is the razor blue of Grimmjow’s eyes and those sharp, sharp teeth.</p>
  <p>This is a dance they know more intimately than anything else. It doesn’t matter, that there’s been five years and no sight of one another; it doesn’t matter that Ichigo can barely get over the shock that he’s here, he’s alive- he’s always been good at compartmentalizing in a fight, letting his body move as it knows.</p>
  <p>(As it craves to, some nights, when the rain is pouring down and the hungry crescent moon hangs in the sky. When the full moon hangs, bloated and gluttonous and bathing everything in silver, and Zangetsu howls under his skin, and he has to take his swords up and come out to this field and practice until his arms burn, all the while knowing that there’s a missing partner to this, all the while knowing that it isn’t <em>enough</em>.</p>
  <p>But Ichigo is not the beast that dwells under his skin, far from it.</p>
  <p>He won’t let himself be.)</p>
  <p>His muscles burn with the reverberation of each blocked blow, and he doesn’t bother to tamp down the grin on his face, one he’s only ever let Grimmjow see, savage and just as hungry as he is.</p>
  <p>They had been twinned blades, the two of them, but always set against one another. Even if they didn’t have to be. Even if they’d understood one another better than Ichigo’d been ready to admit then.</p>
  <p>“There you are,” Grimmjow murmurs, and his voice is low as a caress. It sends a shudder down Ichigo’s spine. “There you<em> fucking</em> <em>are</em>, Kurosaki!”</p>
  <p>He sounds delighted.</p>
  <p>(Here is a truth: Ichigo has never met anyone more delighted to see him, the worst, most vicious parts of him, than Grimmjow.)</p>
  <p>(Here is a truth: He’s missed it.)</p>
  <p>Ichigo doesn’t reply, only presses him harder.</p>
  <p>Grimmjow had only ever fought him with the one sword, but with two to contend with, he’s forced to use every inch of his agility. And Ichigo, where he couldn’t keep up before, still finds himself stymied. But more than that- he finds himself <em>equal</em>.</p>
  <p>Because Grimmjow’s changed, too. Where he used to fight like a brawler, Pantera used more in quick, fierce swipes like claws, now he’s got an actual <em>form</em>. He’s been training, Ichigo realizes, and the thought makes him both giddy and jealous at once. Normally, if Ichigo’d been pressing him so hard, he’d have shifted by now, released his sword in the way that only those select few Unseelie can, and brought it back into himself.</p>
  <p>Magic given freely can be returned freely.</p>
  <p>And Grimmjow’s Resurrecion had been a thing to behold.</p>
  <p>But he doesn’t, not now. And that’s more patience than Ichigo had ascribed to him in the past.</p>
  <p>(Ichigo doesn’t release his bankai, either. That’s not what this is about. Not yet, anyway, even if he itches to see how different that form is to what he knows, to what he’s fought against before.)</p>
  <p>They’re both drawing out the fight, he knows. Relishing in the way the air has gone charged and deadly with intent between them, the world around them narrowing only the the clash of metal against metal, the whispered kiss of a barely-dodged blade, the grunt when a foot or fist makes violent contact with more vulnerable flesh- or, in Ichigo’s case, when he rams the hilt of Zangetsu’s short-sword right into Grimmjow’s solar plexus, and he wheezes.</p>
  <p>It’s the most ridiculous noise Ichigo has ever heard him make, and he laughs, the sound ringing out clear as a bell between them.</p>
  <p>“Fuck <em>off</em>,” is all Grimmjow snarls in return, and he doesn’t bother with finesse now, just tackles Ichigo straight to the ground. The impact slams the breath right out of him, and he’s quick to shove Grimmjow right off of him and scramble to his feet.</p>
  <p>“Never,” Ichigo tells him, fierce, and he means it. Grimmjow’s taken aback, he can see; his eyes widen for a split-second before a satisfied expression settles on his face instead.</p>
  <p>“Good.”</p>
  <p>Grimmjow launches himself at Ichigo again, faster now, and they’re using shunpo and sonido respectively now, blurring in and out only to block, dodge, parry.</p>
  <p>Byakuya, thousand-bladed, has always said that the dance is the same, no matter the partner.</p>
  <p>Kenpachi, blood-drenched, nameless-sworded and eleventh-named, has always said that everyone dies the same if you cut where you need to.</p>
  <p>Yamamoto, burning, says that the battlefield is the only desolation there is.</p>
  <p>Ichigo doesn’t believe any of that wisdom.</p>
  <p>He’d know Grimmjow from anyone else he’s ever fought with, because no one else has pushed him like this, no one else has wanted <em>him</em>, in all his inglory, bastard-born demi-Fae with enough power in his veins to turn a city, a country, molten if he wanted to. He should have known that Grimmjow wouldn’t be dead, not from something like that, because that <em>wasn’t who he is</em>.</p>
  <p>And as to the third?</p>
  <p>Battle has never been desolation for Ichigo.</p>
  <p>It is energy, connection, raw competition as the means to an end. Strength above all else, strength to rattle the stars and cut the moon from the sky and carve it into a crown, if you dared. And it’d been that way for Grimmjow, too.</p>
  <p>It still is, he can tell.</p>
  <p>(Whatever has happened, whatever they’ve each done, this hasn’t changed.)</p>
  <p>(Ichigo is so, so relieved.)</p>
  <p>But of the two of them, Grimmjow is the one who has been fighting every day, for sport or otherwise. He’s Unseelie, he always has and always will be a hunter. And even before, if it had been a contest of pure strength, he would have won.</p>
  <p>Ichigo is lithe, lean, and the years have only introduced some broadness to his shoulders and a little extra padding along his thighs and hips. He’s built for speed. Grimmjow- well. He looks unchanged, and even in this form, there’s strength visible in every line of muscle.</p>
  <p>Ichigo tires, much faster than he used to.</p>
  <p>(He could win, he knows, if he used his magic. If he used <em>bankai</em>. But Zangetsu, wild and snarling and forever pulling at the leash that binds them together, that savage, hungry part of him, is silent. This fight is enough for him, and so- it’s enough for Ichigo, too.)</p>
  <p>It’s just a simple mistake that does it, in the end. He’s a fraction of a second too slow in lifting his longsword to block, and he feels a thin slice, then a hot trickle down his neck.</p>
  <p>Zangetsu’s shortsword is pressed right up against Grimmjow’s chest in turn, but Ichigo knows it’s his loss.</p>
  <p>But it doesn’t taste like defeat, not at all, not even when Grimmjow says, “You’re getting slow, Kurosaki.” He’s panting, and so is Ichigo, and the thrill of the fight begins to fade. He doesn’t think they’ve been this close before, and he finds himself staring at the other, cataloguing all the subtle differences- his teeth are sharper, his nose has a bump where it must have been broken, there’s a new shadow to his eyes, and he has a few more faint scars now, but- the worst of them, the one that had come from Ichigo’s hand, is still there. It peeks jaggedly just out of the collar of his shirt. Ichigo wants to put his mouth on it. He definitely doesn’t do that.</p>
  <p>“It’s you,” Ichigo finally says, ragged. Because it is, and he knows that beyond any doubt. There’s the cold steel of a sword against his neck, and it feels like a kiss. That’s Pantera, as much of an extension of Grimmjow and his magic as Zangestu is of Ichigo’s soul, and he knows her just as well as he knows his own blades. His voice is strangled, his eyes burn. His vision blurs dangerously, and he swallows around the knot expanding to fill his throat.</p>
  <p>This feels like a miracle. Ichigo knows well enough that miracles aren’t real, and that he’s used up more than his fair share just staying alive.</p>
  <p>“Who the fuck else would it be, Kurosaki?” Grimmjow asks. If he’s trying to inject contempt into his voice, he’s failing magnificently. It’s soft, more reassuring than Ichigo’s ever heard him, and laden with more emotion than he can parse through, right now.</p>
  <p>That’s the thing, about the Fae. Seelie, Unseelie, or even those in between. They never say what they mean, it’s layers and layers of subtext, and Ichigo was too green, too young and brash and hard-headed by far before, to know that ‘don’t forget my name’ is a different kind of promise, and ‘those eyes’ is a compliment.</p>
  <p>To know that victory is another form of love, that swearing not to lose is a declaration on its own.</p>
  <p>Ichigo would carve out his own heart for any of his friends; they wouldn’t need to ask him. He’d do it without hesitation. He’s bled for less, nearly <em>died</em> for less, for a Court that was too tame, too rigid to be home, for a family that he isn’t sure how to fit himself back into. Before, he’d known love in the memory of his mother’s smile, in Karin’s scowl and Yuzu always having a hot meal ready for him. But now? Now he knows it as <em>fighting</em>, as <em>protecting</em>, as nothing but pure instinct corralled into a softer shape, and he can recognize it reflected back at him.</p>
  <p>It still takes his breath away.</p>
  <p>Ichigo lifts one hand, cups Grimmjow’s cheek with it.</p>
  <p>“I thought you were dead.”</p>
  <p>The hand not curled around Pantera’s hilt moves to rest over Ichigo’s. The majority of Grimmjow’s power is still sealed in the blade, and the fingers that slot between his own are cool to the touch, but nearly human.</p>
  <p>“You still think that?”</p>
  <p>Ichigo can only shake his head. Grimmjow is <em>here</em>, he’s <em>real</em>, he’s alive.</p>
  <p>“Where were you?”</p>
  <p>“Fuckin’, healing. Eating. Kisuke kept me in a statis spell, for the better part of a year, at first, and-,”</p>
  <p>“A year,” Ichigo interrupts, flatly. He’s going to strangle Urahara with his bare hands. There’s enough settled favors between them that he can, and for keeping this from him? It’s more than justified. “At first. It’s been nearly <em>five</em> fucking years, Grimmjow. What’s your excuse for the rest?”</p>
  <p>“Excuse?” Grimmjow snarls. “I wasn’t- I nearly died. Ask that freak. I got out and I’d healed, but I could barely walk. You think I wanted anyone to see me like that? You think I wanted you to see me like that? Fuck, Kurosaki. You could’ve eaten me alive in your pathetic human form.”</p>
  <p>“I could eat you alive now,” he points out, not inaccurately. Grimmjow scowls harder at the reminder of the gap between them, one that’s only grown in the time they’ve been apart. Ichigo had wanted to grow with him, <em>because</em> of him. He feels it too. “You should’ve told me. I wouldn’t- did you seriously think I was going to hurt you?” The possibility alone stings, and he yanks his hand away from Grimmjow’s, skin crawling at the touch. Ichigo has always tried to do what’s right, but he knows himself well enough by now to also know that he hasn’t always succeeded.</p>
  <p>“Yeah, and you still just lost, and we both know you weren’t throwing the damn fight outta pity. Least, you better not have been, I’ll pick the flesh from your bones if you were. Fucksake, though- fine,” Grimmjow grits out. “I didn’t want you looking at me like that. Pitying. You’re soft as hell, Kurosaki, always knew that wouldn’t change, no matter how hard those fuckers in their Thirteen Courts tried to grind it outta you. ‘S that human shit. Useless morals instead’a real rules, and weakness. You reek of it.”</p>
  <p>Ichigo shoves Grimmjow off him. Yeah, this is the real deal, alright. No one <em>else</em> was going to be such an asshole after showing up out of the blue. The other lands in the mud with a grunt, his fingers, already clawlike even like this, leave deep gouges in the earth as he pushes himself back up. Ichigo uses Zangetsu’s longsword to steady himself as he stands, too.</p>
  <p>Weakness. Maybe that’s what it is, to have gotten so close to someone who’d only ever seen him as an enemy. Maybe that’s what it is, to let what was get tainted by his own wishes of what could’ve been. Dangerous business, all of it.</p>
  <p>“You’ve been gone five years, Grimmjow,” Ichigo tells him. He sounds more tired than furious. The rain isn’t letting up, either, the chill of the water settling into his bones. Nothing good ever happens in the rain. “You don’t know shit.”</p>
  <p>“I know you’re stronger than any of those assholes over there, but you let them leash and collar you still. I know you’re in the middle of fuck-nowhere just letting yourself <em>rot</em>-,”</p>
  <p>Ichigo drops his swords, but Zangetsu is still a whirlwind in his head as he flings himself right at Grimmjow and tackles him to the ground before he can finish that.</p>
  <p>“I’m not <em>rotting</em>, and I don’t have a leash,” he bites out, and his knuckles make glorious contact with the sharp edge of Grimmjow’s jaw. They’ve never fought like this- for all that their fights had been personal, they’d never been petty. “And what I do is my fucking business, isn’t it?”</p>
  <p>“Is it? You wanna waste all that power, Kurosaki, go right ahead,” Grimmjow sneers right back, the sincerity from earlier bled right out of him. That’s fine; they were never like that before. A leg lashes out, claws- real claws, now, because this fight isn’t part of any unspoken deal- rake against his side and pain burns for a second before flesh knits itself back together.</p>
  <p>Ichigo is out of shape, yes, but his body hasn’t forgotten how to fight. How to keep going so he can keep fighting.</p>
  <p>He curls his hand into a fist and punches, and there’s a satisfying crack under his knuckles as they hit Grimmjow right on the jaw, a starburst of satisfaction. Grimmjow reels back, one hand reaching up to cup the hit area. He looks wounded. Ichigo tamps down on the guilt that threatens to bubble up at the sight.</p>
  <p>“It’s mine to waste, isn’t it? You don’t get to just- walk back in here and tell me what to do, like you’ve never been gone. You don’t- seriously, what the <em>fuck</em>, Grimmjow, you just show up, and now you’re acting like you know me? Like you have <em>any</em> idea what I’ve been doing for the past five years? I lost my powers, and I was mortal, properly mortal, I couldn’t shift, couldn’t do <em>anything</em>, Zangetsu was <em>dead fucking metal in my hands</em>, do you know what that was like? It was like being trapped in my own skin,” he says, more bitterly than he meant to. “And yes, the Courts helped me get it back, and hearing his voice was like coming home to a part of myself again, but of course it was for a reason. Of course it was for a <em>favor</em> to be collected, and- you know what? I’m done with that. All that owing and ownership and debt.”</p>
  <p>He’s never voiced that to anyone before. His voice doesn’t shake as he keeps going. “So if that’s what you’re here for, then. Then just fuck off, alright?”</p>
  <p>Grimmjow is quiet for a long moment. But he doesn’t make any move to attack again. That, more than anything else, sets him on guard.</p>
  <p>“And if it’s not?”</p>
  <p>“What?”</p>
  <p>“Don’t what me, you fuckin’ heard what I said. What if I’m not here for a debt? You promised me a fight, yeah, and one better than what we just had. But I didn’t come here just because you <em>owed</em> me shit. I can’t fucking lie, so believe me when I say this: I was always gonna come back, asshole,” Grimmjow tells him. They’re both drenched now, slick with rain and mud, and his fingers are going numb from the chill. He doesn’t try to move.</p>
  <p>He can’t move.</p>
  <p>“And I’m sure it’s easy for you to say that now that you’re here,” Ichigo says, his mouth moving before his mind can tell it not to.</p>
  <p>“Shut the <em>fuck</em> up, Kurosaki!” He roars it out, the sound splits the sky like the thunderclap that echoes not even a few seconds after. “You wanna talk shit and say I didn’t show up for years? Fine. But don’t you say for a goddamn moment that I wouldn’t be back. I told you. Ain’t just the fight, and if fighting me’s such a damn obligation,” he spits the word out like it’s something filthy, “then consider that round we just went to be it fulfilled.</p>
  <p>“But I’m not like them, those bastards who keep trying to keep me and mine under their thumb. And I’m not going to let you let me be. You- if you want to spar. Do this again. Yeah, I’ll be fine. But if you tell me to go-,” he breaks off here, and his jaw is set, like it’s ready to take another blow. “If you tell me to fuck off now, I will. That’s it.”</p>
  <p>“You’re an idiot,” Ichigo tells him. His mouth isn’t done running itself. “You just got here. I’m not gonna tell you to leave when you look like a drowned cat-,”</p>
  <p>“Hey, it’s not like you look any better,” comes the immediate protest, which Ichigo ignores entirely.</p>
  <p>“-and. I don’t want you to go.”</p>
  <p>“Oh.”</p>
  <p>“Yeah.”</p>
  <p>“How long-?”</p>
  <p>“As long as you want,” Ichigo tells him firmly. Grimmjow eyes him warily, as if Ichigo has just offered him poison instead. “I’m not going to kick you out. Yeah, we’re going to fight. Yeah, you’re going to get on my last nerve. But as long as you want one, you’ll have a place here.”</p>
  <p><em>With me</em>, he doesn’t say. But he doesn’t need to; Grimmjow’s expression softens. He looks stricken, as if Ichigo had just slid a knife between his ribs, instead of making the offer that he should have, all those years ago. That he’d maybe wanted to, even then, because he’d wanted <em>more</em>, even if he hadn’t known what that entailed.</p>
  <p>(Even now, he doesn’t have that clear of an idea. But there’s potential, and he wants to see where it goes. It doesn’t matter, as long as Grimmjow says yes. As long as they’re together.)</p>
  <p>“Don’t think you can tame me or some shit,” he says. But that’s acceptance, too. “And I’m gonna whip your sorry ass into shape until you’re worth fighting.”</p>
  <p>“Worth fighting-? I killed a god after your nap, you know that?”</p>
  <p>“Yeah? How’d it taste?”</p>
  <p>“Like iron.”</p>
  <p>Grimmjow makes a face, revolted.</p>
  <p>“Demi,” Ichigo reminds him. “The human part of me’s fine with it.”</p>
  <p>“Gross.”</p>
  <p>“You’re gross.”</p>
  <p>A beat of silence, and a shrug. “Ain’t my fault you decided we were gonna fight in a fuckin’ field in the pouring rain. Dramatic bitch.”</p>
  <p>“It’s far enough from town that no one was going to ask any questions. It’s common sense.”</p>
  <p>Grimmjow looks at him for a long moment. “You’d have killed me, if I wasn’t- me. If I was someone else, I mean.”</p>
  <p>“Yeah.”</p>
  <p>“You missed me.” It’s not mocking, although it could be. Instead, it’s said soft as a revelation.</p>
  <p>“Did you miss what I said, about five years?” Ichigo sighs, relenting. “I did. More than I thought I would. I was looking forward to seeing you again. To our fight, to- more, if you didn’t insist on it being to the death and then throw a fit when I didn’t kill you. And then afterwards, you weren’t there, and I knew that I was the one who’d left you alone in the sand to die.”</p>
  <p>“Wouldn’t have been your fault, if I did. Told you that you were soft as hell,” Grimmjow says, easy. And maybe it is, to him. But Ichigo will always see those he could’ve saved, and for a long time, Grimmjow had been one of them. “And I’m only going to say this once.” He’s not looking at Ichigo, but his jaw is set with anger. Ichigo understands intimately that it’s not rage directed outwards, but inwards. He’s seen Grimmjow angry- he’s pissed Grimmjow off enough- to know the difference. “I’m sorry. For taking so long. Meant to take you up on that other fight a lot sooner than this. But shit was going down, in Faerie, and we had to hammer out some kind of treaty. Kisuke helped out, mediated for Halibel with the Courts, but there was a lotta bullshit involved. She’s a good Queen,” Grimmjow tells him. “Don’t tell her I said that. She keeps me and Nel real busy- kept us real busy- fixing shit up. Making sure we wouldn’t be vulnerable again, if anyone fuckin’ thought they could break pax and try to take advantage of us.”</p>
  <p>Silence, punctuated by the patter of raindrops against soaked ground. The water streaming down his face feels more like tears than anything else.</p>
  <p>Ichigo accepts this explanation, and tries not to feel like a complete ass. He fails.</p>
  <p>“I’m sorry, too. For- not looking harder for you. For not believing you, earlier. For- hiding, a little.”</p>
  <p>“Not for breaking my fuckin’ jaw just now?”</p>
  <p>Ichigo snorts. “Never that. You had it coming, saying all that. And it’s healed now, isn’t it?”</p>
  <p>“Nice t’know you’ve still got fangs,” Grimmjow murmurs. He can’t lie. He means it. Ichigo shifts closer, so their hands just brush together.</p>
  <p>And in the rain, Grimmjow leans closer, until the warm line of his arm against Ichigo’s is all he can focus on, and the smooth slide of their fingers against one another. He smooths his thumb against Grimmjow’s, relishes the shiver he gets in return, barely suppressed.</p>
  <p>It isn’t what they had before. But it’s more than what Ichigo had thought they could have, more than he’d ever dreamed to ask for.</p>
  <p>Instead, it’s a promise unspoken, and it’s enough.</p>
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